A combination of a bright, crisp winter's morning and memories of last week's defeat of table toppers, Derby, filled the car with extra positivity as the Happy Chocker, Quiet One and yours truly headed south for our clash with Mick McCarthy's high flying Tractor Boys. Despite Leeds' awful record away from LS11 this season the Derby win had given everybody at the club a large dose of optimism for our fortunes on the pitch to balance against the disturbing events off the pitch with the Football League seemingly hell bent on getting their man Cellino come hell or high water. Neither the Sheriff or his followers were going to come quietly though as illustrated in the Riverside Inn at Ipswich as the boisterous pre match songbook was blasted out by the passionate, massed away fans.

The injured Bellusci was replaced by Pearce but interestingly Warnock kept the captain's armband in an otherwise unchanged team. After the mixed team photo in remembrance of Xmas football match between the British and German troops during the 1st World war the game was underway. Leeds picked up just where they had left off against Derby with crisp decisive passing troubling the home side although it was the dangerous Murphy who had the first shot of the match which deflected harmlessly into Silvestri arms. Soon Leeds were on the attack again though as they pushed forward looking for an early goal. The evergreen Warnock supported his young midfielders, Cook and Mowatt, and found space beyond the Ipswich full back before picking out Antenucci on the penalty spot who finished coolly to give Leeds the lead and send the 2,000 visiting fans into raptures. 4 minutes gone 1.0 Leeds.

Could we be on our way to beating another high flying championship side? I dared to dream for one fateful minute. Of course I should have known better after years of watching Leeds on their travels I should recognise the phrase "flatter to deceive".

Ipswich stung by the goal flew back at Leeds with gusto. Luke Chambers swung in a deep cross for the tiny Stephen Hunt to rise high at the back post and head wide. Leeds failed to heed the warning and two minutes later it was the impressive Daryl Murphy timing his run to perfection to connect with another Chambers cross and leave Silvestri with no chance as his bullet header nestled in the back of the net. Capt Warnock berated ex Capt Pearce for his inept challenge on Ipswich's top scorer. Poor, poor defending. 1.1.

Leeds responded immediately. First Antenucci was caught offside against the tightly drilled home defence after a lovely ball from Warnock and then Bianchi finished off good work from Leeds with a volley that was blocked before Antenucci slipped his marker again but shot high, wide and handsome. Leeds were giving as good as they got in a very open game but both Murphy and McGoldrick were digging out chances for the home side as the game headed for the half hour mark.

The referee, Mike Dean, is not the most popular ref amongst Leeds fans and he added to that reputation as he gave a soft penalty after Warnock had jumped to clear a ball on the edge of the box before bundling Anderson over. Very harsh. Needless to say McGoldrick dispatched the penalty with ease to give the Tractor Boys a 2.1 lead and a head of steam that Leeds now struggled to contain. Chances began to flow to the home side as Leeds' early confidence on the ball disappeared to be replaced by hesitancy and numerous errors especially in their own half. Byram in particular was having a match to forget. Murphy killed the game right on half time with his second and Ipswich's third from what looked like an offside position with the Leeds defence in absolute meltdown. 3.1 Ipswich at Half time. Suddenly the long trek to Ipswich was looking like yet another fruitless away day in the search of Leeds United perfection.

"Still if we can just get a goal back early in the 2nd half" I forlornly hoped.................Instead Ipswich increased their lead almost immediately as a Tommy Smith header was helped into the net by Berra. 4.1 Ipswich. "This is going to end up 6 or 7" the not so Happy Chocker piped up whilst the fans in front of me were already heading back to the sanctuary of the Riverside Bar to drown their sorrows. We might aswell have followed them as Ipswich never relinquished their stranglehold on the game as they passed through the now dishevelled and well beaten Leeds team. Sharp, Austin replaced Adryan and Doukara but to little effect. Austin summed up the visitors afternoon as he strode free from his marker and hit a shot from the edge of the box that ballooned away to the corner flag. Embarrassing to say the least. We were already in the car heading home when the final whistle went signalling a 4.1 victory to the Tractor boys.

The long trip home was a quiet one as we tried to understand how we could go from beating a very good Derby side one week to losing so tamely to a good Ipswich side the next? Defensively we looked very vulnerable. Was it because Pearce was back in the back four or did the midfield allow their counterparts just too much space to run at the defence? 12 hours after setting off I turned the key in my door and let myself in. Another hugely disappointing day in the life of this travelling Leeds fan. Still there's always Fulham at home to look forward to next week. We should beat them shouldn't we? I'm already nervous.

This was another defensive disaster we have not had a good back four since the o leary days nor a coach/manager since that understands for a team to progress you need a solid defence both Pearce and Cooper came from League 1/2 and neither are commanding defenders and in particular Pearce not good enough Belluschi is a good footballer but a poor defender Byram looks shot to pieces Berardi poor discipline poor defender no disrespect to Neil Redfearn when you have such poor resources you need an experienced manager IE Pullis who can organize and set up a team properly another weekend ruined by LEEDS UNITED

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Andrew Butterwick

6/12/2014 09:06:30 pm

Ian,
I disagree with regards Cooper. I think he reads the game well and could be a a good acquisition. Pearce's defending for the goal was woeful. As you say yet another weekend ruined. I suppose we should be used to it by now but it still hurts like hell.
MOT

Surely Pearce came from Premiership Pompey? I can remember we wanted him and you got him! At Leeds you seem to have a distinct ability of taking really good players and turning them into junk and I put that down to your excessive number of moronic supporters who hound them through their own ignorance, just watch young Hunt go now he is playing in a team where he is welcome and among supporters who support!

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VikingTor1

7/12/2014 01:51:23 am

Sort to say, but you have a point there

sydney-leeds

7/12/2014 08:12:44 am

keep hunt sicknote

sydney-leeds

7/12/2014 08:11:21 am

pullis you must be joking id rather have hockaday pullis teams are boring they make you cry.

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Henryv

6/12/2014 09:36:23 pm

The defence has been dodgy for several seasons, but still we have brought in midfielders and strikers instead.
We STILL need a strong dominant centre-back, as every ball into our box is a problem.
ALL the goals were sloppy, and made Ipswich look at lot better than they are.

Just seen a post from our sporting director talking about bringing in another midfielder and striker what football has this guy been watching ffs two decent centre backs before anything else stop conceding goals and the rest will follow

Sorry Andrew but there are a couple of points and I do know how it feels! I can remember coming away from your place just having lost out on the First Division Championship through a last minute penalty which happened right in front of me and should have been a free kick to us! Totally inept refereeing. However you are the only person I have seen who thought yesterdays penalty was a 'softee' (white glasses?) and then a possible offside goal? I have been amazed all week at the amount of euphoria with which Leeds fans have viewed your match against us in view of your good win against a normally strong Derby side. Of all the many forecasts I read not a single one tipped an Ipswich win and extremely few even considered a draw so I looked very carefully at the highlights of your Derby game, I didn't see it all so cannot really comment other than on the goals. Look carefully and you will see on each occasion your striker was free in the middle of the box, completely unmarked and on one occasion the Derby defender just gave up! So what on earth were Derby on about but, in view of that, was it such a great win after all or a really bad Derby day? Please do not think I am trying to take anything away, I am not, look where we have been for far too long for me to do that but I have been totally bemused by some of the comments i have read from many of your supporters and being frank it has left me wondering whether there are more fanatics than football supporters supporting Leeds who, for a while, were once a good team.Good luck for the future.

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Ev

7/12/2014 01:13:09 am

Blue, ive been bemused by Ipswich town supporters comments prior to this game..... The fact is that your attempt at lecturing neutrality is pathetic and your comments are laced with natural bias and your own unbelievable ignorance towards anything Leeds United. Leeds fans come in all shapes and sizes not just the clichés that live in your hypocritical brain. Im baffled as to why you want to come here and abuse a commentator who has said absolutely nothing bad about your club what so ever

Andrew Butterwicks posts are from the perspective of a Leeds United supporter and hes entitled to his opinion so please do us a favour and sod off back to your ignorant little world

Abuse? Please look it up but it does strike me, quite forcefully, that you are probably one of the Leeds supporters to whom I was referring. I do often read Andrews articles and appreciate them and that is because, unlike you, I do not live in a vacuum!

Andrew Butterwick

7/12/2014 03:15:10 am

Blue,
I haven't seen any replays of the pen or the "offside" goal but I wrote what I saw at the time rightly or wrongly. From a balanced Leeds fan perspective..........I think you'll find Stephen's brother not quite as good as you think he is. He works very hard but too often his final ball/shot doesn't match his approach work. Hope he proves me wrong though because he is one of the good guys off the pitch.
MOT

Great. We are all football fans but was just making a point as still feeling that loss all those years ago and how unhappy I was so felt for you guys yesterday. All the best, give it time it will come good again. We love Steve so hope his brother is half as good but as you say, we shall see. Big Mick McCarthy rates him and he is a Yorkshireman too!!

Blue,
As a football supporter of the white, agree with where youre coming from, god we have all been there on away days....going back to the early sixties and watching my team.....bremner,charlton,hunter and co trying to establish themselves(as these boys are)we went down to upton park and got
smashed this time 7-0 by moore,peters etc.....what a shambles that day was....wrote to the Don to vent my feelings!!
So yesterday brought back some bile we all feel, as though the lads let us down personnaly, but the good times outweigh the bad
So each must have their day, yours was yesterday, ours yet to come when these boys are a more settled side, luckily in this coach I trust and these cal youths
Don , supporter since 62

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Henryv

7/12/2014 03:53:41 pm

Well said Don.
The thought that we are looking at another midfielder and another striker instead of defenders is a bit baffling.
Readers may need to assert himself with Massimo, and 'suggest' some better options.
At least we are trying to play football, and not humping it up the field.
One thing we do have over teams like Ipswich is the fans.
Without our away fans, the crowd at Ipswich would have been below 20,000, tor a ream second in the league.
Speaking of fan power - lets get behind our Massimo:-

The woeful Pearce, should be "NOWHERE" near the 1st team and it's no coincidence that when he was not playing in the Blackpool and Derby games, that the Leeds team played very well and actually won those games, without Pearce's outstanding lack of pace and terrible school boy mistakes.
I personally can't wait for Pearce's contract to expire at the end of this terrible inconsistent season, but let's just hope that his poor defending has not got Leeds relegated by then.

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Darren W

7/12/2014 04:08:48 pm

Great post as always Andrew. Am a lifelong leeds supporter, but live out in Australia so don't get to too many matches anymore. Your posts are always the first ones I look for to give a credible / unbiased report. Keep it up!!

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Henryv

7/12/2014 04:17:38 pm

Great to hear from you Darren.
We need as much Aussie support as we can get for Massimo.
The FL are hounding us AGAIN!
It will make a difference, and it's the only power we have.

The result was thoroughly deserved this weekend I thought. We just weren't good enough.

I agree with the comments above about Pearce, he's neither a footballer or a dominant centre back and he had a particularly bad game on Saturday. We need to look at this area but we've known that for a while. We need to be able to deal with balls into the box as we will keep shipping goals otherwise. At least Redfearn had the balls to drop him last week even though he was the captain as it's not always easy to do that.

I still think we'll be alright this season as we've got enough good footballers to win games . Can't do that conceding so many goals but this is a major work in progress after all.

I can't get that change.org site to work at all unfortunately.

MOT

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Henryv

7/12/2014 09:56:01 pm

We need your vote, Chief!
I just tried it again, and got my wife to vote!!
It seems to work OK?
Please try a again, my friend.

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